Reaching the Emotional and Social Needs of Every Learner 1. Build relationships with your students. 2. Cultivate a classroom culture that is positive, supportive, and accepting. 3. Use educative and restorative practices to handle violations.
High quality relationships with my students are essential, particularly for challenging lessons in which I plan to let them struggle rather than telling them all the right answers (Friedlaender, Burns, Lewis-Charp, Cook-Harvey, Zheng, & Darling-Hammond, 2014; Bryk & Schneider, 2002). A high tolerance for frustration develops over time by building trust through supportive, positive interactions and by intentionally nurturing a growth mindset as part of class culture. With meaningful relationships in place, I can demand more and get sustained effort even when it feels uncomfortable and a little frightening.
Build Relationships with Students
A daily check-in establishes caring contact with adults in the school, helping learners stay connected and invested in their school and their learning. Image from unsplash.com Creative Commons CC0
Create opportunities to learn more about students without seeming contrived or disingenuous. Greet students enthusiastically at the door and ensure they feel welcome right from the start. As they respond with handshakes and greetings, I get my first glimpse of the mood and frame of mind before class begins while also hearing them say their own name to me so I don't mispronounce it. Once they are in the room, the teacher's task is to put students at ease so they can focus on learning.
Use a seating chart to learn student's names and have a Warm-Up or Bellwork assignment posted. Knowing where they should go and what they should do as soon as they walk in lowers the anxiety level. Having something for them to do in the first few days that you have to hand back to them and match their names with their faces helps to learn names quickly. Don't forget to design opportunities for students to learn each others names as well.
Mix "get-to-know-you" questions into the academic pretest because even if they don't know the content yet when there are also questions about themselves students feel like they aren't completely wasting their time. Use the information from this assessment as a starting place for one-on-one conversations with students to build foundations for positive interactions and connections.
Share "Good Things" - from Capturing Kids Hearts - every day so students can share something about life outside of class. As they acknowledge the good in their lives and their classmates celebrate with them, the practice of gratitude sets a positive tone for the lesson, makes learners more receptive to academic tasks, and promotes good social and emotional health. Gratitude is associated with lower instances of depression, anxiety, and social dysfunction (Singh, Khan, & Osmany, 2014). A school wide commitment to sharing our Good Things builds in the practice of gratitude daily.
Cultivate a Supportive Classroom Culture
Students may not know intrinsically how to ask for or offer support. Teach these skills in short bursts as needed during academic activities. images from unsplash.com
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Intentionally structure the group dynamics during collaborative activities to facilitate learning and growth for both academics and social skills.
Use Kagan Structures as class builders and team builders first, then mix academic with social next. It's a quick way to build in practice and formative feedback while also growing the group. When students know they will get a chance to talk to one another their focus on academic tasks increases as does their trust that the teacher understands and respects their needs.
Explicitly teach students how to greet, affirm, celebrate, agree or respectfully disagree, and to say goodbye. Continue throughout the year with daily opportunities to practice these skills. Model the process and provide rehearsed or memorized phrases and sentence starters in the beginning of the year. Reinforce as necessary throughout the year.
Move whole class direct instruction into the small group space as much as possible. When students work together with a partner or small group, they gain the opportunity to interact positively with their peers and engage in academic and social dialogue (High, 2010) to extend their learning. Having a more learner-centered classroom allows teachers to differentiate more effectively to meet individual needs for all learners.
Use Educative and Restorative Practices
Artwork by Dallas Clayton. Photo by Hannah Ockney. Provo City, Utah, March 2019.
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Knowing the acceptable and efficient way to get things done in the classroom is established through teaching procedures. Knowing the acceptable and preferred way to treat one another is established through the collaborative development of a social contract. When there are violations, students need to know that you value them and their learning time enough to enforce classroom discipline. Having 3-5 clearly and positively stated non-negotiable rules and consistent follow-through helps your students feel safe in your classroom, but does not overwhelm them with a long list of "Thou shalt not's." Within those rules, students develop a Classroom Constitution or Social Contract so they have a say in how we agree to treat one another and how we handle conflict. Every class develops their own Social Contract with me and we sign this together so that when someone (or the whole class) gets off track, I can refer to it and say, "Hey folks, didn't we agree that we would treat one another with respect / honesty / dignity / etc? Check yourself and check each other." This helps students have more ownership of their own behavior. Building in choice, ownership, and positive relationships only takes you so far if you don't follow through with consequences for infractions. Students need to know that you will protect them and protect the learning time when violations occur. How we respond to misbehavior communicates more about classroom culture than the posters that are hanging on the wall ever will. When punitive practices are used to enforce discipline, the focus is on the rule and the offender. On the other hand, restorative practices focus on the relationships and striving towards a positive outcome to repair the harm that was done.
Ask for a "Check." Restate the expectation and give time and space for students to check their own behavior first. This communicates your belief that the students have the self control they need to refocus. Maintaining an internal locus of control empowers students to do their best and to be their best. Most discipline issues end here.
Maintain a "Track Record" notebook to record both impressive behavior or effort as well as negative incidences and poor choices. Students know when they need to "sign the notebook" and sometimes they'll just get up and do it without me saying anything because they know they were off track. On the other hand, neighboring students often point out especially remarkable contributions that should be recorded on the positive side. The Track Record notebook makes it easier when I need to contact parents or write a referral. All it cost was the price of a spiral notebook or at most a three-ring binder.
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3. Apply consequences that teach rather than punish. Offer offending students a chance to make things right with the offended parties and give the victim(s) or the class a voice in the process so that the relationships can be restored and strengthened. Be intentional to reintegrate students into a supportive environment to promote accountability and achievement. This communicates acceptance of the student and the belief that they have something important to contribute to the class. Punitive consequences, such as detention or suspension, don't teach as much as restorative opportunities to repair the damage that was done and often result in higher rates of recidivism. Instead of punishment, offer chances to learn a better way to handle the situation or to restore relationship. For example:
Students who are tardy can make up the time they missed at lunch or after school so they don't fall behind in class. First period tardies for students who can't drive themselves to school often have very little to do with the student themselves and parents should be notified about the impact that chronic tardies have on student performance. When a student arrives late, they should expect the same enthusiastic greeting from the teacher, who is genuinely happy to see them and to welcome them to class. Only during a private moment should there be a conversation about the tardy and an offer of support from the teacher.
Students who have damaged school property have a chance to serve with teacher or custodial staff to clean up the classroom or campus and appreciate the hard work that goes into maintaining an orderly school. This increases their ownership of the school community and often results in more pride of accomplishment than punishment could ever impart.
Students who are disrupting class out of boredom participate in peer tutoring so they can help peers that need more practice or guidance to master academic concepts. The offender has a chance to feel helpful and important while the recipient of the tutoring has a chance to learn from a different perspective.
References Bryk, A., & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation. Colorincolorado. (2011, June 26). What to do first: Creating a welcoming ELL classroom environment. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FegO4Gh3uyk
High, J. 2010. Second Language Learning Through Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.
Friedlaender, D., Burns, D., Lewis-Charp, H., Cook-Harvey, C. M., Zheng, X., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2014). Student-centered schools: Closing the opportunity gap. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education;
Lee, V. E., Bryk, A. S., & Smith, J. B. (1993). The organization of effective secondary schools. Review of Research in Education, 19, 171–267. Singh, M., Khan, W., & Osmany, M. (2014). Gratitude and health among young adults. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(4), 465–468. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.csuglobal.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=100812577&site=ehost-live
Smith, D., Fisher, D. B., & Frey, N. E. (2015). Better than Carrots or Sticks. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
We Are Teachers Staff. (2019, January 15). What teachers need to know about restorative justice: What is this alternative to suspension and does it really work? Retrieved from We Are Teachers website: https://www.weareteachers.com/restorative-justice/